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Disney CEO Iger: iPad could be a ‘game changer’

By Charles Starrett ● Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Speaking during the company’s Q1 Fiscal Results Conference Call, Disney CEO Bob Iger made several comments about the iPad, including its potential to transform media content and possible Disney products that might appear on the device. When asked, “If you could give us more details on what you think ABC might be offering on the iPad and is this a step in the direction of retailing or wholesaling your cable and broadcast networks online, that would be helpful,” Iger began his response by saying that, “We find that the iPad has a lot of potential. We think it’s a really compelling device. We think it could be a game changer in terms of enabling us to create essentially new forms of content.”

He continued, “We’ve put in the marketplace a digi-books product through our Disney publishing group just recently. We were developing it primarily for the computer screen and we started developing it for iTunes, I should say for the iPhone/iTouch platform, and suddenly this device comes along and provides us with an even more robust technological platform that makes the interactivity that we were going to provide, things like read-alongs, simple animation, music, to just sort of come to life, and that’s just one example.” Iger went on to mention more specific potential iPad releases, saying that “When you think about ABC, you think about a program like `Lost’ and not just being able to watch the program, but all the other things that viewers like to do with that program. ABC News, another great example. ESPN ScoreCenter, which is a great app on the iPhone, and provides relatively rudimentary information, scores, basically, suddenly we have an opportunity with a platform where you can really make the scores come to life.” Iger was notably present at Apple’s iPad introduction event; Apple CEO Steve Jobs is currently Disney’s largest individual shareholder, with approximately 7% of the company’s stock, and is also on the company’s board of directors. [via MacDailyNews]